


and her name was freedom

by youheldyourbreath



Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: F/M, Wild West AU, brothel politics, grappling with faith, michelle jones is an ace shot, peter is a pastor from the big city, the west is a dangerous place
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2019-10-14 22:40:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17517158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youheldyourbreath/pseuds/youheldyourbreath
Summary: The idea of a young woman alone in the wilderness with nothing but the grit of her convictions to see her through the seasons was unorthodox. Yet, the people in town had said Miss Jones was an unusual girl. “Half wild and more stubborn than any man,” Betty had tutted when Peter suggested riding out to her ranch to introduce himself. All of the good people of Queensborough were his congregation.Even the wild girl beyond city lines.“Miss Jones? My name is Pastor Peter Parker. I’ve come to bid you hello and introduce myself.”He heard the stomach quenching cock of a rifle. “Turn ‘round real slow.” The voice of his would-be attacker was fierce and eerily calm and unmistakably feminine.





	1. Chapter 1

The train whistled, high and tinny, when it pulled into the stop at Queensborough. Peter’s tattered bags swung lamely at his sides as he dismounted from the rear. He squinted through the dense smoke of the steam engine on the platform for his guide.

There, beyond the haze of smoke, was a sturdy gentleman with glances that pinched the end of his nose. He wore a concerned, but exuberant expression. It was a masterful combination. “Mr. Leeds?” he said, as he approached the young man.

His guess was founded, as the young man broke out into a disarmingly charming smile. He swept the two well-worn bags out of Peter’s arms and began to speak a mile a minute, “Pastor Parker. Ain’t I glad to see you? I says to the missus you’d arrive just on time. No time for delays, I says. And she said I was crazy for toddling off to the station so early, ‘cause you’d be arriving on the evening train. But here you are. Midday just as you said in your letter.”

Peter ducked his head, bashfully, “I said I would arrive by the midday train. I am a man of my word.”

“Oh, Pastor, right you are,” Mr. Leeds said, as he bustled them along to a wooden cart. He tossed the only two bags of his belongings in the cart and climbed up the two short steps to the seat. Peter joined Ned on the opposite side.

He beckoned for the horses that led the carriage to ride on, back to the village, his new congregation—Queensborough.

“So, Pastor…should I call you Pastor?” Mr. Leeds asked.

Peter smiled, patiently, “Peter is just fine, Mr. Leeds. Ain’t no reason we can’t be familiar.”

Ned split into a sunny smile, “Ain’t no reason we can’t be friends.”

“And shall I call you Mr. Leeds?”

“My Christian name is Edward, but folks around these parts call me Ned.”  

* * *

It took an hour with the horses drudging through the terrain to make it to the center of the quaint town of Queensborough. It was as picturesque as he had envisioned when his mentor offered him the congregation. The old pastor had fallen ill with the sweating sickness in June. It was a long, godless summer for the good people of Queensborough, but Peter was an avenger of faith. He had been taught and trained in the new manner. His class of clergymen understood more than the book of lessons the Lord had left for them to preach by. They studied math and science and the human spirit.

He had even taken a turn in some more progressive circles in Concord. Nature men or transcendentalists, as they liked to be called, believed that for modern society to progress men and women must all be equal. He took what lessons he could from these enlightened people and learned to live by some of their principals.

Not all. Propriety still ruled his sheltered heart. But truth, logic and the innate goodness of mankind? He could prescribe to those beliefs.

“This is her, Peter,” Ned said as the horses trotted into town. “Queensborough. She ain’t much, but she’s home.”

The horses curled to a jilted stop in front of the bank on the long, dusty Main Street. He shook his head, “Its perfect.” The two men dismounted and Peter could not contain his excitement, “It is absolutely perfect.”

* * *

He spent the next two weeks learning the names and faces of his congregation about town, on Sundays, or wherever he could meet the people. It was a hard life, the West. His clergymen had warned him about the lawless world he was willingly entering, but he had not experienced anything but generosity from the people of Queensborough. It was a quiet town and they were a hardworking, kind people.

The only place in town Peter did not dare visit was the dancehall that was at the dusty edge of Main Street. When the stars littered the evening sky, men from all about town and riders from all over the County saddled into the dancehall and did not leave until the early airs of the morning.

Peter might have been a young, idealistic man, with progressive notions, but he still averted his eyes whenever he stepped past the dancehall. It did not seem polite to gawk.

It was on the fifteenth day of his tenure, when he was avoiding the dancehall, that Peter bumped into a restless young woman in brown trousers with a pistol tied at her hip. He could not make out her features beneath the wide-rimmed hat, but he heard her snarl, “Mind your steps, sir.”

He scrambled for some eloquent apology, but before he could say so much as a word, the mysterious figure swung her leg over the horse tied on the nearby post, saddled the beast and was galloping away from the town.

When he found the apology stuck in his throat, all that was left of the woman was the muddy tracks of her horse.

* * *

Her name was Miss Jones.

The innkeeper had snorted about the girl beyond the town who ranched on a farm all her own. She had no family, no friends and, the rumor about Queensborough, was that she preferred it that way. She was a loner, and Peter was an idealistic, green Pastor.

And so, he set off in pursuit of her small ranch, to finish their conversation from the day she left him in the dusty street.

It took him more than two hours on stilted horseback to reach her ranch. The people in town had warned him her home was nearly impossible to find. She had staked out some land that was close enough to supplies in less-than-a-day’s journey, but far enough away where should could read her books in solitude.  

He tied off his horse on the post of her cattle panel. “Miss Jones?” Peter called as he explored the length of the young woman’s ranch. It was a meager farm with enough acres to house a decent size herd of cows for milking and slaughtering. No of the structures had fallen into disrepair, which surprised the young pastor. The idea of a young woman alone in the wilderness with nothing but the grit of her convictions to see her through the seasons was unorthodox. Yet, the people in town had said Miss Jones was an unusual girl. “Half wild and more stubborn than any man,” Betty had tutted when Peter suggested riding out to her ranch to introduce himself. All of the good people of Queensborough were his congregation. 

Even the wild girl beyond city lines.

“Miss Jones? My name is Pastor Peter Parker. I’ve come to bid you hello and introduce myself.” 

He heard the stomach quenching cock of a rifle. “Turn ‘round real slow.” The voice of his would-be attacker was fierce and eerily calm and unmistakably feminine. 

“Miss Jones, apologies, I didn’t mean to spook you,” he gambled and turned around. 

“I manage just fine, Pastor Parker,” she said, and much to his dismay, her gun was still aimed in his direction. His welcome and apologies had done nothing to dampen her ire. What he did not know about her could have filled a book, but he had a sneaking suspicion that she was an excellent shot. He did not want to give her leave to test his theory. 

“Forgive me, Miss,” he said, raising his hands weakly, as if to plead for his safety, “I just meant to come and invite you to service on Sundays. Everyone is welcome in my Church.” Miss Jones took the safety off of her Winchester. The rifle creaked an unsettling click. He swallowed, “Miss, I ain’t come here to start trouble, honest.”

She did not lower her gun, “Don’t I know it, Pastor. Otherwise I’d have shot this gun already.”

He laughed more out of fear than the awkwardness that was bubbling in the pit of his stomach, “I think we got off on the wrong foot, Miss Jones.”

She lifted the rifle, pointing it at the sky, and fired one, very loud warning shot. Peter jumped. “Not that wrong,” she drawled, looking him up and down like she was not sure whether to shoot him for trespassing on her land or dismiss him for being the kind of gentleman that was spooked by the crack of a rifle. “I don’t remember inviting you here, Pastor Parker. And I don’t fancy having men I don’t know on my land. This place ain’t safe for a woman all alone, you see.”

He blanched and stuttered, “I would never….I’m a man of God.”

She nudged the cold barrel of her gun against his chest, “Lots of men do lots of things in the name of their God.” Underneath the brim of her dusty hat, he caught the first, fleeting glance of her eyes. They were as hard as the rocky terrain all around them and they were just as sandy in color. She looked like she had been birthed from the West. The wilderness was her only Lord and Master. And she was absolutely magnificent in her temerity.

“Miss Jones,” he scraped, helplessly. “Miss Jones, I don’t like guns.”

“Funny, I don’t like strange men on my land,” she replied, dryly.

“Are you gonna shoot me?”

She paused, “I haven’t decided yet.”

“Miss Jones,” he struggled to look at the gun directly. It made him quake with fear. “Miss Jones, I will mount my horse and get as far away from here as I can ride, if you let me go.”

Michelle pushed her gun against his chest, a gesture of warning, and then, finally, mercifully, lowered her rifle. Peter exhaled. She began to swagger back to the little shanty near the outskirts of the grazing land. He watched her walk away, completely terrified and entranced. Only when she swung open the door, did she finally turn back to look at him. She donned the same nearly murderous, almost bored expression from when he first laid eyes on her with her gun shoved in his face. She said, “Well, Pastor, would you like to come inside? You’ve come all this way…”

He should have done as he promised, mounted his horse and flown away from the ranch and the girl he was almost certain had perfect aim, but, instead, he nodded stiffly—

—and followed her inside.


	2. Chapter 2

When Peter was assigned to the small town of Queensborough out West, he had been told by the brothers of his order that the West was an untamed, feral place. Men lived by the whims of their hearts and desires, and scarcely found time for the Lord, their God, in their daily chores. It was lawless and inhospitable. It had sounded like an adventure.

Yet, when he had taken the train into the nearby station, it looked like cultivated, well-cared-for land. The desert stretched out to eternity, but it did not seem to harbor brutish intent. It was land.

The only place that inhabited the uncivilized notions of the West he had been warned against was the dancehall. Peter avoided it at all costs. He was not a rude man. Peter nodded at the ladies politely when they preened at him, but he never looked them directly in the eye. It felt indecent. And most importantly, the dancehall made him terribly sweaty and flushed.

Except, even the dancehall, was not the dauting Western den of debauchery like he had been advised he would find should he take up the post in Queensborough. New York City housed such abodes. There were ladies’ homes scattered all about Five Points. Peter surmised, in every place in the world, women could make a living, should they choose to exchange certain things for it.

Queensborough was not a wild, Western thing.

But this girl, Miss Jones, felt like she might be. She walked with acute purpose. Her feet tracked in the ground with each hefty step. She was not afraid of leaving a trail behind. It was as if, with each flat step, she was daring all those that might be inclined to attack her to dare to follow her home. There, no doubt, she was the kind of girl that would be waiting with a smirk and a shotgun.

She carelessly wiped her grimy boots on the rickety porch of her shanty and swung open the light wooden door. Miss Jones did not bother holding it open for him. It flapped back in his face and he only just managed to catch it with his hand.

He cautiously ducked into her home. She seemed completely unbothered by his presence. Miss Jones toed her boots off at the door and hung her soiled hat on a hook. Yet, he noted, she kept her gun strapped to her waist.

He gulped and removed his hat, as a sign of respect, and stood awkwardly in her entryway. The entire house was more one large room than an actual home. She had her unmade bed tucked into the corner and her bedclothes strewn on the blankets. Peter flushed. Her kitchen was less of a kitchen and more a make-shift fire with a hanging pot. Beside the fire was a cozy, ratty chair and he squirmed at the sight of another gun leaning up against the wall, as if it was peacefully at home.

He stupidly remarked, “You have a lot of guns, Miss Jones.”

She unbuttoned her vest and the white, dirtied shirt underneath was sheer. He looked up at the ceiling. She snorted, “I’ve got as many guns as I need to beat back any men that carry notions, Pastor. But, as far as I can tell, I don’t have to be worried about you.”

Peter agreed, “I would never harbor such unseemly thoughts about a lady, miss.”

Miss Jones sat on the edge of her bed, “That isn’t what I meant, Pastor.”

He tilted his head down to look at her, his curiosity winning all of his common sense. He asked, “What do you mean, then?”

She shrugged off her vest off, her sandy, Western eyes piercing every fragment of his being. Miss Jones was a bewitching, winsome girl. For only a moment, he understood why men would gamble a visit to her property. Something irate roared in his chest. Perhaps, he thought, she needed all those guns, after all. 

She smirked, it was crooked and brazen, “You wouldn’t know what to do with a girl like me, if ya caught me, Pastor.”

The pastor went an unseemly shade of red, “You are a rather forward woman, Miss Jones.”

She stretched her feet out, unbothered by his obvious discomfort, “You wouldn’t call a man forward. You’d say he was honest. Women get the short hand of it, you see. Unfair world and all.”

He fumbled for purchase. His vocation was words. Twice weekly he would give a sermon about the virtues of humanity. The pastor was more than capable of whipping up a rebuttal. He was not the kind to be found dumbstruck and speechless. Rather than embarrass himself further, he cleared his throat, “I should go.”

“Without trying to get me to come to Church on Sunday?” she simpered, looking like the cat that got the cream.

He wiped his sweaty hands on his black slacks, “If I maintained that you were interested in my services, I would relentlessly pursue this avenue, believe you me, Miss.”

The words tumbled out of him without thought or care. Only when he had ceased speaking did it occur to him how those particular words sounded, what they invited. Her eyebrows flew up into the untamed curls kissing all around her face. She looked as surprised as he felt by the turn of phrase.

“I—”

She shook her head, “Don’t apologize, Pastor. If you meant those words, you ought to stand by ‘em.”

He clicked his boots together and tersely bowed before fleeing her home.

* * *

There were five unspoken rules  conduct on the Western reaches of the states that Pastor Parker had been warned to follow above all else when he boarded the train to Queensborough his last day in New York. His Aunt May had brushed a kiss on his brow and bid him safety and prosperity in his new venture.

Then, his mentor, Pastor Anthony Stark, guided the young man just out of earshot of his Aunt. He plastered on a generous smile, for the sake of May, but his words were serious. He said, “Where you are going, no man will look out for you or your own, save you. Remember that.”

Peter nodded obediently, “Yes, Mister Stark.”

“Good lad,” he had said and handed him a newly bound copy of the scripture.

Only when he had boarded the train and waved his last goodbye to his Aunt’s fading image on the quickly disappearing platform, did Peter crack open the book Pastor Stark had given him. Inside, there was a crumpled piece of paper in his mentor’s own hand.

It read:

_Dear Peter,_

_Where you are going not even God himself has jurisdiction. No man owns the land. Be careful, be aware and while I have always admired your penchant for being friendly and neighborly, be mindful. The world is not a kind place._

_If you would not mind, I would offer you these five rules, a code of the West:_

  1. _Do not inquire into a person’s past. Take the measure of a man for what he is today._
  2. _Do not practice ingratitude._
  3. _Friendship is not a lasting thing. Men’s hearts are easily changed in the light of self-interest._
  4. _Do not look too kindly on another man’s woman. It is grounds to be shot._
  5. _And, finally; be mindful of the folks that live outside town. They are made of wild stuff._



_Yours, affectionately,_

_Anthony_

* * *

After he arrived in Queensborough, he stowed the rules in the breast pocket of his jacket as a living-breathing-reminder of the what the West could be, what it was, and who his neighbors were beneath their kind, godly smiles. Yet, perhaps it was his gentle nature, Peter tempered his caution with his belief in the good will of all men. The rules sketched on faded paper were a stern reminder, but also strangely hopeful.

If his congregation had escaped the cities for a fresh start, he would not be the person to question their redemption. In fact, he believed that the Lord, their God, wanted all of his children to achieve grace.

Until today, none of the rules seemed unreasonable or unattainable.

And yet, after one half-hour with Miss Jones, the final warning from his mentor nagged at his conscience— _be mindful of the folks that live outside town. They are made of wild stuff._

Peter could have blasphemed. He had not abided that rule. He had willfully adventured out to the dusts of the desert and into the home of a woman that so brazenly flirted with him. Or Peter secretly hoped she had been of a mind to flirt with him.

It was that concealed desire that flooded him with shame the entire journey back to town. Miss Jones was a lone-woman managing for herself in the wilderness. She had more than proved to the good people of Queensborough that she was deserving of their respect. She had even pointed out to the young Pastor that a woman alone in the middle of nowhere, regardless of their relationship with God, could have impure intentions.  He had rebuffed her insinuation as preposterous. After all, he was a servant of God.

He had insisted that he did not harbor unseemly thoughts on her person.

He had lied.

She had been the most handsome, prepossessing woman he had ever seen. From the moment he had stared down the barrel of her gun and caught a glimpse of her gutsy eyes, he felt his stomach perilously swoop.

On the back of his horse, Peter clutched the rosary clutched in his fists. He offered his condolences to God, for being desirous of such a woman, of any woman, and convinced himself he would not think on her, again.

He postulated it would not be an impossible task. After all, she had remarked that she was not often spotted in Church.

He would put her from his mind and be the better for it.

* * *

The next Sunday, Miss Jones sauntered into his Church mid-sermon with the brim of her dusty hat shadowing an alluring smirk.


	3. Chapter 3

The tiny, wooden Church was matted down with the Western, dry aridity. The entire congregation fought back against the heat and the stale air with the incessant flapping of their fans that served as an unwelcome chorus to Pastor Parker's sermons. Men leaned into their wives to benefit from the occasional, generous generated wind from their silk fans.

Peter suffered at his pulpit without a fan to break the heat. He sweat bullets as he wove an intricate sermon each and every Sunday of the brutal summer. His congregation was quite accustomed to his clammy appearance halfway through his service.

So, he assumed that no one was the wiser when he began to heavily perspire the Sunday Miss Michelle Jones waltzed into his Church. She disturbed the service for only a moment. The good people of Queensborough seemed stupefied by her arrival, but when Ned waved her down, offering the seat beside him to her desert dusty figure, the whole room collectively returned their fractured attentions to their Pastor.

Peter cleared his throat, which was suddenly as dry as the air weighing down the Church, and tried to anguish through the rest of his sermon. Miss Michelle Jones was an unwelcome guest and an absolutely unbearable distraction. Luckily, he was not certain his stilted preaching reached the ears of his hot, distracted congregation. The summer air was more of a teacher than their pastor could ever hope to be; it warned against hell and Satan. For, if damnation was anything like these Western summer days, Peter knew his congregation would strive to avoid hell at all costs.

As each member filed out of the Church, he watched the donation basket near the door fill with copper coins. He smiled politely at each and every godly Queensborough townsfolk, and urged them to say their nightly prayers and count their blessings.

When the Church was nearly empty, he heard the rattle of work boots stride up the aisle. The completely wooden Church, devoid of any extravagance, echoed. It boomed. And the pastor froze. His hand pressed against his chest, over the tiny printed copy of the scripture he kept concealed in his breast pocket, and silently prayed for deliverance.

“Well,” Miss Jones drawled, surveying the Church, “I enjoyed your sermon greatly, Pastor.”

Peter faltered. For the life of him, he could not remember what he had preached about that morning. Perhaps, he wondered, it had been about the virtues of loving thy neighbor. Or, even, a homily about kindness not only to community but to one’s self. He could have even addressed the summer heat.

He did not know. He could not recall.

The young pastor tightly smiled, “Thank you, Miss Jones.”

She smiled, too. It was not a kind or virtuous smile that the ladies’ of town often spared him when they went on their morning walks with their husbands. It was more amused than abstinent. It was infinitely knowledgeable and clearly at his expense. “You ought to call me, MJ, Pastor. All my friends do.”

He felt his flush travel beneath the collar of his jacket, “I was not aware that you had any friends, Miss Jones.” She lived on the outskirts of their town, a true homesteader, if he had ever known one.

She licked her lips. It captivated his senses. “I didn’t,” she said.

Hypnotized, Peter failed to conquer his gaze. It lingered where it should not—her lips.

Miss Jones seemed to notice his mesmerized person. She tugged the brim of her hat down, some, so it cast shadows on her face, drenching the lips in question in dark silhouettes. If anything, it enhanced her beauty. Just out of touch. Just out of reach.

“Pastor,” she spoke, breaking the clouds of his distraction. “I would like to make confession.”

The young clergyman gripped the breast pocket of his jacket. He wanted to feel the bite of his bible. “I am not doing confession today.”

Michelle tutted, “Shame, that. Seeing that I’m not like to travel all the way here for confession any time soon, Pastor. I ain’t the kind of girl that comes to Queensborough, if I can avoid it.”

He impulsively asked, “Then, why did you come today?”

She smiled, this time without some secret twisted in the corners of her mouth. It was an open and sweet smile, and it was only for him. He wanted to pin it to his jacket, just above his bible, where all the things that were dear to his heart lived. “A kindly sort of boy came to my farm. He asked me to come to Church.” Peter felt his heart beat, erratically. She continued, her smile turning from open to teasing, and it did strange things to the very marrow of his manhood, “And I have a curious nature, Pastor.”

“So I gathered,” he stupidly replied.

She laughed. It skirted about the room like the faeries from the stories his Aunt had read to him as a child. It was mischievous and pure all at once. He would have worshipped at the foot of such a laugh. He would have endured a pilgrimage for such a smile.

All his life, he had been searching for God outside of himself, in the skies, in the things he could not see.

And then, Miss Jones blasted through the world like a bonafide miracle.

She was the kind of wonder he could see, touch, and taste.

Or she would have been if he had not taken up such oaths to the Lord, his God.

Peter could have blasphemed. The words hung on the edge of his tongue, dangling on the edge of sound.

Miss Jones rested her hand on the hilt of the gun strapped to her hip. “Well, will you take my confession, Pastor?”

Peter nodded, guiding her to sit in the nearest pew at the back of the Church. His tiny wooden home of worship was not like the grand Churches he had studied at in New York. There were no confessionals or secluded rooms to conduct official Church business. There was only the one room where God could see all. It was an open place for truth and forgiveness. There was nothing to hide.

He was terrified. 

The young pastor sat beside the wild girl from the outskirts of town. He could smell the smoke on her from the open fire he knew lived in her little home. She was everything but domesticated. Miss Jones was the kind of woman that yearned for adventure and large, open spaces. The little Church and pew she was huddled in seemed so contrary to her nature, as if she had to fold up all of the bits of herself that were exceptional to fit inside the wooden den.

He looked ahead and asked, “How long since your last confession?”

She unlatched her gun from her belt and began to diligently clean it with a white cloth hidden in her jacket. He had never conducted confession in such circumstances. She sucked on her teeth, thoughtfully, “Round about three years?”

Peter coughed, “Three years?”

Michelle did not stop polishing her gun. “Three years,” she confirmed.

“Why have you not returned to Church?” he asked.

She lifted the gun to her face to peek inside the barrel. Michelle grumbled and returned the weapon to her lap to clean something he could not see. “Didn’t much feel like it.”

“Is that true?”

She stopped cleaning her gun. He stopped breathing. She turned her dear face to him and their eyes met. The sunshine from the summer sparkled in the room but did not reach her eyes beneath the brim of the hat she still had not taken off. He waited. She was contented to let him wait. Finally, she said, “True enough.”  

He knew it was his role as her confessor to allow her to speak, to absolve her of her sins and only offer her forgiveness. And yet, he could not stop himself from asking questions, from longing to know her, to understand.

But miracles were often unexplainable.

“Why did you really come here, Miss Jones?”

She did not look away. She did not even flinch. He could guess she had been in many-a-stand-off in her life. Some invasive questioning by a green pastor was not intimidating in the least to a woman like Miss Jones. “Why, you asked.”

“No, I mean, what possessed you to attend service—”

Miss Jones exhaled, quietly, “You asked me to come.” He itched to fold the scripture in his fist, as if the word of the Lord would seep into his skin from touch alone. It could not absolve him, now, though. Not when he was sitting so close to her and welcomed the heat that radiated off of her, like the summer sun casting down on all of Queensborough. Inescapable.

He ought to have stood up and asked her to leave. He should have concluded her confession and given her several _Hail Mary’s_ to say in penance for such a lengthy stay between confessions. He should not have looked at her like she was freedom and holiness all in one girl.

“I am your Pastor,” he whispered. “I want all of my congregation to come to service.”

She fastened her gun in her belt, but did not break the unnerving eye contact between them. Miss Jones cut to the truth, “I told ya, Pastor, you wouldn’t know what to do with a girl like me, if you caught me. I maintain that to be the truth.”

“I would nev—”

Miss Jones stood up, “Faith doesn’t just live in these four walls, Pastor. Sometimes, you gotta take a leap of it someplace else.” It seemed, more than anything else she had said, to be the true answer to his question. She smiled, again, and it reverberated through him, shaking his being and faith all in ten words. “Otherwise, what’s the point of living?”

She was taking a leap of faith on him. In what way, still remained to be seen, but it rattled him.

Miss Jones tipped her hat in farewell and began to saunter toward the heavy, double doors at the entrance of the Church. He watched-on, in something akin to awe, and just before she left, he asked, “Will you come again next Sunday?”

She looked over her shoulder at him, bearing down that smile he wanted to pin on his jacket, and said, “Wouldn’t miss it, Pastor.”


	4. Chapter 4

The Dance Hall loomed over his town like some unspoken phantom among the locals. It haunted their little, idealistic town, and Queensborough endured it without any thought. It was not discussed or acknowledged, but it seemed to oddly represent the hub of Main Street. Good and god-fear people whisked in-and-out without much thought for their salvation. His aversion to the establishment had once been due to the deep, red embarrassed that flooded his system at the thought of the secret dealings of such a place. He could not bear to look at the ladies draped on the banisters, cooing at the men that made their way to their posts, for fear of complete and utter mortification but, lately, he found his aversion to be coming from far more shameful thoughts.

The dusty ranger that lived on the outskirts of the town was _his_ Dance Hall. The open secret that he was afraid all in the town saw and did not remark on. With one smile from her during Sunday services, he was utterly ruined. She danced into his thoughts at the most inopportune moments, in the nights when he was most vulnerable to indiscretion.

And more to the point, the ladies of the hall performed deeds he had once been disinclined to in thought and action. He was a man of God. Then, the clink of desert boots stomped all over his virtues. He wanted her like the men of town, the travelers, the drunkards wanted the women that worked at the Dance Hall. He was no better than these men, longing for that which he did not know.

Miss Jones was an unknown quantity.

She was driving him beyond distraction. She was a deity and with such rapturous splendor came secrets.

When he had pressed his congregation about the young Miss Jones, the women tutted about her stubborn, bullish demeanor. The men were silent. The secrets, her secrets, were beginning to swallow him whole.

Curiosity was what had driven the Devil from Heaven. He could feel himself, too, slipping from his own holy designs, especially late at night when he could not imagine anything outside of her half-cocked, sure smirk as he fumbled through the commandments in sermon.

She never took her hat off in Church. He suspected, to do so, she would have to learn to find comfort in the wooden pews. The Church was as confining venue for such a girl. Where it gave him stability, it made her skittish.

The girls from the Dance Hall continued to sweetly call after their pastor as he determinedly charged down the one road toward his small, wooden Church. He tipped the flat black edge of his hat down, blocking them from view.

The dark black hat that christened his head had been a gift his Aunt had generously sent in the post on the last train through Queensborough. It still smelled faintly of the choking smoke and sin of New York City. He recalled his youth, dodging and weaving about the streets, begging pennies off of the folks that could afford truly white linens. The finer folk of New York City treated the world as their playground, and Peter had been little more than an amusement, a funny anecdote about the poor, as they brushed past him in the street.

Then, he took up the Church. It blanketed him, protected him, gave him purpose and kept his stomach full when his childhood companions starved hungry on the same streets they endured together in his earliest memories. 

He was not that boy anymore; yet, Queensborough, no, Miss Jones, made him feel as lost as that boy had been. He was wandering without a source of light to see by and where he would end up, he did not know.

“Pastor Parker,” Mr. Leeds cheerfully called, jolting Peter out of his sullen thoughts. The burly man bid his companion adieu, a long and lithe figure with sharp razors in her smile, and bound across the dirt street to him. “You have been mighty entertained, Pastor, as of late. The wife is beginning to suspect you found her dinner all manner of lacking, after all.” 

He watched the woman glide back into the General Store. The handmade welcome sign hanging from the wooden doorframe clanked shut behind her retreating figure. 

Peter felt a sudden headache come on. The desert heat could often be an unforgiving mistress. 

Yet, he was certain, he had seen the woman with the secret smile before. No, perhaps, better it was to say, he had seen that smile before. The exact one. 

It negged at his memory, on the outskirts of conscious thought and allusive memory. 

Gently, Ned repeated, “Pastor?”

Peter rested his hand over the jacket-pocket that housed his tiny bible. “Extend my apologies to your wife, Ned. Dinner was delicious. Only, I have been distracted, as of late.” Even through the heavy fabric of his jacket he could make out the binding of his scripture. It instantly calmed him, as it had the day he walked into the seemingly endless Church and expressed his intention to take up his religious calling. He had been a gaunt boy, then. The world had been mean to him, unrelentingly so, and all it had severed to do was make him kind. 

Now, he was a man of purpose with less-knobby-knees and, still, boundless capacity for kindness. 

Mr. Leeds beamed, “She’ll be tickled, you hear, Pastor? Tickled, to hear you think so.” 

“Ned,” Peter turned to face his friend, “Who was that woman there?” He had been in town nearly four months, now, and he had never seen her face. Or, if he had, he had never noticed her much. He doubted that second was true. She had a very striking face, one that was not easily forgotten. Certainly, she had never come to sermon. He knew all of the good people that graced his Church each and every Sunday. 

She was not one.

The ever jolly Ned turned suddenly cold and removed. His face, which famously expressed the range of human emotion, was still and unreadable. Of her, he only said, “That, there, that’s Miss Tilly. She owns the General Store.”

His eyebrows knitted. He knew that could not have been right. Peter had been in the General Store many times since moving to Queensborough. Surely, he should have seen the owner of one of the staple businesses in the community. “Miss Tilly,” he repeated. “Is she not a Church-goer?”

Ned swept his hat off of his head and tucked it under his arm, “Begging your pardon, Pastor, I ought to be heading home. The wife worries.”

“Ned—”

Mr. Leeds hustled down the road. Peter stood, agape.

In the distance, he heard another one of the girls whistle his name. Chastened and blushing, he retreated to his Church, but not without one final look at the General Store.

* * *

Peter paced the up and down the aisle of the nave of his Church on a dark Saturday night. He muttered his sermon lowly under his breath, practicing for the next morning with a worrying and severe intensity. The book of Leviticus preached many virtues, but above all it spoke to the value of abstaining from impurity and sin, whenever possible. To Peter, these virtues seemed illusive, as of late.

He morosely thought that he might have been better off if Michelle Jones had shot him that first day they met instead of being forced to carry on with the guilt of longing for her swirling in his chest.

The young pastor lived for her sauntering into town each and every Sunday for his holy orations. He dreaded it, too.

Mercifully, he suspected it was all one-sided, his growing affections for her. He wanted to shout to the heavens. He was a poor excuse for a pastor. She deserved a leader to help guide her, not dream about how she might look in the curve of his arms, dusted with his kisses as well as the desert sand he knew she loved so much.

Miss Jones was not even fully-indoctrinated into the Church yet. Yes, she sat patiently in her seat every Sunday beside her neighbors with her dusty had on, like a real member of society, but she was not. He could sense the unrest and discomfort her presence forced upon the townspeople. Even surrounded by the congregation, she did not fit in. There but apart.

He should have been dedicated to helping bridge the gap between the homesteader and his congregation. Instead, he often found himself floating away with thoughts of how she might flash him that wild smile if he ever kissed her. The silly, romantic notions that cottoned the logical space in his brain were loud and unsettling.

Peter unconsciously grabbed for the bible stowed away in his jacket pocket. The leather did not calm him as it once might have, when he was in New York City and still sane.

He practiced his speech louder, as if to drown out the bombastic sounds of his restless thoughts.

“You know, you sound awful crazy, muttering to yerself like that, Mr. Parker.” Peter froze. He must have conjured her with his raucous thoughts because, like something out of a dream, Miss Michelle Jones was leaning on the edge of the nearby rickety pew.  

He dropped his bible. It opened to the pages of Leviticus he had been slaving over the last week in preparation for the next morning. Her eyes flickered down to the book and she smiled, sharply, “Are you going to pick that up?”

The pastor scrambled to the ground and scooped up the traitorous pages. He caught a brief glimpse of the text. In black and white, the Lord damned desire. He looked up at Miss Jones. He wondered what that made him.

“Why were you muttering to yourself?” she prompted, once more.

He cleared his throat, “I was preparing for tomorrow. My sermon.”

She strode the short distance between them and stole the book from his lame hands. She combed the pages he had bookmarked and the good-natured smile she had sauntered into the Church with began to fade with each passing moment. He felt exposed. No one, not even his Aunt, had been allowed to touch his private bible. It had been a gift, the first one he had ever received upon his entry to the Church.

He did not like her holding it, but, more than that, he did not like the way she held his scripture. She looked horrified. She blinked up at him, “You believe all of this?”

Peter tucked his hands into his pockets, so she could not see the nervous tick to his fingers, “It is the word of God.”

“Forgive me, Pastor, but this is some horseshit. And I would know what that smells like.”

“Miss Jones, please.”

“It isn’t anyone’s business what a woman does when she goes through her courses and she certainly shouldn’t have to go to a priest to make amends for it.” He felt his entire face drain. He knew he must have looked as white as a sheet, but her brazenness had completely caught him off guard. She had a habit of doing that. Undeterred, she went on to say, “And the rest of this? This is not love. Not any kind of love I’ve ever known, anyway.” She carelessly tossed the bible back at him. He barely had enough time to extract his hands to catch the flinging book. For someone that spoke for a living, they failed him now.

Michelle looked almost disappointed by his silence. He was not sure what she wanted from him, what she expected him to say. The Church was his life. He accepted the words etched in the book she had so thoughtlessly tossed away. He accepted what he knew about God.

(Yet, he was slowly beginning to _believe_ in what he felt about her. It felt as true as the words written in the book he was cradling, and he wondered how? He could not see it, like he could the pages in his book. Perhaps, he wondered, that was true faith, believing in what you could not see, but believing in it whole-heartedly because it was good and honest and true.)

(She was good and honest and true.)

He broke the silence with a small, heavy question, “Why did you come?”

Quietly, she said, “I don’t all together know, now.”

“Michelle,” he venerated her name. It was the first time he had called her by her Christen name out loud. He had so many questions—why she had come was at the top of that puzzling list—but the only answer he cared about was one he knew he ought not to ask. He was a man of God. He was a man of the Church. He was a man of conviction.

 _He was a man_.

“I think of you day and night,” he said, his bible clenched in his fist.

She did not look surprised. She looked rather defeated, like perhaps she had been waging her own war when he had stood on his pulpit every Sunday. “I know,” she replied.

“You do?” he choked.

She nodded. It cost her something. He could see. She exhaled and he knew he was doomed, “Why else do you think I’m here, Pastor?”

He cast restraint aside. He had done it the first day they met, when he knew better than to walk into her tiny shack of a home and did so regardless of propriety. Now, he marched the long walk, all two steps, into her space. She was taller than him up close. Her hat made her seem very intimidating indeed, but under the brim of it her eyes were swirling and anguished.

He remembered the way she had worn her hat each Sunday morning. He had thought the deep discomfort she carried in her shoulders had been from the Church, the structures, but he wondered if all along she had kept the hat on to hide her eyes from him. They were plain to him, now.

He had not been alone in his torment.

Peter took her hat off and tossed it on the pew behind her. It floated down, fighting the air, and when it touched the wooden seat it made a faint noise. It was the only sound present in the Church.

“Pastor,” she said, inaudibly.

“Please,” he gulped, “call me, Peter.”

Her mouth was already there, waiting like a question, and he answered it.


	5. Chapter 5

When he was a boy Peter knew a girl with long blonde hair that kissed her back in shades of golds and yellows, and her locks shimmered like sunlight. He remembered how he would watch her as she went about her daily chores. Her hems lined with mud and hardship. She worked for the nasty laundress above the old shoe-smith. Her name was Gwen, and Peter Parker fancied himself hopelessly in love with her.

Somedays he would muster up the courage to smile at her and, while she never smiled back, she often sported a pretty blush that reddened her cheeks. It was a youthful admiration and innocent at its very core. So, it was a horrible surprise when she turned twelve and the men about town started to whoop and jeer as she went about her day, cooing and calling her ‘sweetheart’.

He remembered how it made him sick to see the way her shoulders would tense and how she would frown. It was worse still, when he smiled at her after that, and she no longer blushed. She averted her eyes instead. Like he was like those men. Like he was the same.

He had never thought himself lecherous or evil like those men had been. Yet, now, with Michelle in his arms, he was not certain he was not a shade of those men. If they were a violent blue that drowned all unfortunate women that happened across their paths, he was a lighter shade, but made of the same hues.

Men were designed to destroy. There were the men that had beat him as a boy. There were the men that stabbed his Uncle Ben in that alley for the little pocket money he had. There were the men that grabbed at Gwen as she walked down the street. There were the men that burned his house to the ground with his parents still inside. Men were destroyers. The Church was his retribution from manhood.

He divorced himself from being a man with all of their imperfections and desires. He had overcome his innate masculinity for something more divine, more holy. He had been born anew and better. He was not a threat or an adulterer or a murderer or any manner of men that he had known in New York City. And through God, he was able to help other men see the light.

In spite of all of that, he still believed in the goodness of men. He knew that God had died to save their souls. Peter, too, would have died to deliver mankind. There was so much kindness and beauty and art worth fighting for in the world.

With another kiss, Peter could feel his own soul, which he had tirelessly drawn from the fiery pit of lechery, dangle just above mortal danger. All of the youthful, foolish years he had traded in kind for his religion were slipping through his fingers. His own hands were well-occupied as Michelle held them. There was no room for God there.

He held Michelle, he coveted her and kissed her with no defenses. He was completely and utterly hers.

She combed her fingers through his hair in a bid to draw him ever closer. They swayed as they kissed and clawed at dirty, desert-worn clothes. He had never known a woman and Peter wondered if perhaps he was never meant to know any save Michelle. He did not feel unlearned or behind. She seemed to know enough for the two of them.

He did not think he could grow tired from kissing her or even that there might be something more, better than their mouths meeting in the moonlight. Then, she unbuttoned the dark fabric of his shirt and he ascended to another realm of reality where the only thing in the world was the rough callouses of her fingertips brushing the planes of his chest as she wrestled with his clothing. He imagined he could almost hear each feeble button pop.  Michelle wrangled with his suspenders, too, and they fell down from his shoulders and hung lamely off the back of his trousers.

He must have looked like a sordid, wanton mess. She bit at his mouth and he felt himself slip further and further from grace.

He groaned, like an ungoldly man, and she whimpered. He felt his dick twitch and rally, straining against his trousers. “Michelle,” he choked but she shook her head and silenced him with another searing kiss.

She kissed him once, twice, three times. Somewhere on the floor, where she had swept it away, lay his bible.

He was shirtless soon enough. He could have sworn he heard a tear as she dragged it from his body and tossed it uselessly aside. She was still sporting all of the clothes she had wandered into his Church with, and he suddenly recalled how she had looked the first time they had met, lounging on her bed in the small shack she called home. He had felt too embarrassed, too effected to take stock of her, then, and how he wished he had looked longer. He should have burned it into his memory.

He would not look away now.

The Church was a far finer establishment than the four paper-thin walls that gave her shelter from the winter and desert winds, but her bed would have been more inviting than the pews that were starting to look like their only option.

Peter tried to tip her backward on one when she brutally ran her blunt nails down his back. He startled to realize he liked the softest kiss of pain. She shook her head at his efforts to lay her out on the wooden pew, tutted and pushed back against his chest, keeping them standing. She tore her mouth away from his lips and he felt bereft and bewildered. Without her kissing him, he was a lonely, hopeless man.

If men looked for answers in their Gods, perhaps, he thought, she was it.

“Don’t,” she spoke and he preened at how thoroughly ruined her low, brassy voice sounded. He knew it could not have been his prowess or his skill—for he had none—but because she wanted him as keenly and hopelessly as he wanted her.

They stared at each other, breathing heavily and ragged, and the little distance between them felt territories away. Michelle lurched forward and flung her arms around his neck, kissing him as wildly as he knew her to be. She was a woman of the wind and west. She kissed with grit. She was resolved and sure, even if he was not.

He was not prepared for the wave of her strength when she propelled into his naked chest. They stumbled down the short aisle. Her hands mapped out the tense ripples of his back like some great explorer. He groaned. She smirked. He grabbed the back of her neck and kissed her harder.

Her tongue swept across his bottom lip and he gasped open for her as she taught him how to battle in a war full of kisses. He peddled backward down the aisle as she advanced more kisses on him. Peter Parker surrendered completely.

The back of his foot caught on the lower step of the altar and the two of them fell backward, his back first. The sharp and shooting pain that spread through his body when he first hit the ground compounded when she fell on top of him. He scowled and hissed, but he did not linger on the ache. She kissed it away.

Her curly head traveled down his bare chest, leaving kisses on the skin she admired. He stretched backward, biting his lip, and caught a glimpse of the cross hanging just above him. He closed his eyes.

Her lips branded his skin like cattle and his thumbs got lost in her hair as she traveled south. Peter shakily managed to prop himself up on his elbows to watch her journey down his skin, marking him with bites and kisses in equal measure. His member ached. 

Michelle easily popped open the button on his trousers and he stifled some inhuman noise that rumbled in the depths of his chest. It sounded suspiciously like _Michelle_. 

Her tussled head lifted from his lower abdomen and she raised a playful eyebrow, "What do you want, Peter?" 

His Christen name sounded heavily on her lips. "You," he pleaded, scattering desperate kisses on the hand he could tug up to his mouth. "You, you, you," he repeated, like contrition. 

He ignored the symbols of the Church all around them.

For now, there would only be Michelle. 

She climbed back up his body, leaving kisses where she went, until her mouth crashed against his, again. His large, heavy hand clamped down on her waist the same moment her agile fingers began to divest herself of her own vest and undershirt. Her hips fell to each side of him and her warmth intentionally pressed against his straining dick. He could have blasphemed for a century. 

He shook like tumbleweed in the dusty, desert wind in her arms. She tossed her shirt away and sat above him, like some angel dressed only in the wrappings on her breasts. He could have sobbed from relief that she was real and in his arms, at last. It had been a torturous tenure in this town with her sitting in his Church each Sunday, just out of reach. 

"Can I?" he husked, reaching for her breast band. 

Michelle tossed all over her curls over one shoulder and smirked, "You think you can manage, Pastor?" 

He nodded, wavering but determined, "I believe I can." With her guidance, he untucked the discolored fabric and began to unwind it slowly, like he had unwrapped wound dressings before. In his other life. 

Each agonizing moment ticked by with her breasts still covered, until the fabric loosened and feel around her waist, exposing her chest to him for the first time. In the early hours of the morning when he serviced himself with shame, he had imagined perhaps she might have covered her breasts with apprehension, if he were ever lucky enough to have her. The true Michelle was unafraid. She straddled his waist, bare from the waist up, and looked down at him, as if waiting for him to fall apart. 

A strange thought struck the young pastor-- he wanted to know how her body tasted. If her lips were intoxicating, he reasoned, her tits must taste divine. 

He sat up from the altar where their limbs lay strewn about and sucked one of her pert breasts into his mouth. He heard her grasp and felt her body sag in his arms. Peter's hand cupped the neglected breast and licked at the nipple that pebbled on his tongue. Michelle wiggled in his lap, searching for the pressure of his dick between her legs. 

Clumsily, with her help, he began to thrust sloppily up against her heat. She rolled her hips down and rested two flat hands on his shoulders as he lavished her tits. It was an explosion of the purest relief. Their bodies dancing in some unsatisfactory pantomime of lovemaking. 

He pinched her free nipple and she yelped. He reluctantly popped his lips off of her breast and fumbled an apology, "I'm sorry, I thought--" But he was thusly silenced. Michelle kissed Peter with a ferocity he did not know man was capable of possessing. His cock was hard like steel and it hurt for velvet warmth. He instinctively bucked his hips upward harshly. She prettily keened. 

The young pastor began to feel in possession of the moment, of her pleasure, until she yanked her body away from him, clamoring off his hips. Peter's jaw dropped. "Michelle," he said hoarsely. 

She shook her head, in a bid to silence him, and yanked down her own trousers. Michelle stepped out of them and fell back on his body, completely bare. His hands grabbed for her backside, groping the skin that was so freely offered to him. 

Her hands guided his chest back until he was laying on the altar ground, offered to her like some ritual sacrifice. Her own hand dipped between their bodies and unfastened his trousers enough to spring his dick free. It was hard and heavy and rested against his stomach, waiting for attention. 

He wanted to turn away and hide the embarrassingly wanton sight from her, but she kept her palms on his chest, pinning him down. She shook her head gently and kissed the corner of his mouth, "Don't be embarrassed. I want you, too. Look." Michelle grabbed his tentative hand and guided it between her legs. It met wetness and warmth. 

Peter groaned. She patiently began to move his fingers through the wetness, massaging at her skin like he might have an ache in his shoulders. The little circles between her legs, at her warmest spot, made the flush of arousal in the Church turn a rosy hue. 

"Look at me," she whined. Peter shocked his eyes open. He was not even sure when they had fluttered helplessly shut. 

He met her gaze and together they touched her. He could feel the flutter of something happening beneath his fingertips and in the curve of her back as her own hips grew sloppy and frantic. "Peter," she repressed. " _Oh, Peter_ ," she said, more loudly. 

"Now?" he said, uncertain and ruddy with exertion.

She nodded. It seemed to be the only thing she was capable of doing in such a state. He was at a loss on how to help. The only thing he knew was that what his body wanted and it was to be inside of her. He wanted to fuck himself up into her lithe body and have her until the sunshine burst behind his eyes. 

Michelle did not ask him for his help, or his guidance in joining their quivering bodies. With his encouragement, the stilted nod he gave in lieu of a yes, she lifted her hips up and positioned his hardness at her entrance. The same warmth that his fingers had found coated the tip of his dick. It felt too good to be real. 

Until she sunk down onto him and took him inside to the root. The stretch of her body entrapping him fully. 

The feeling then was indescribable. He drank in the sight of her as she moved up and down on his dick, almost rocking. He could not catch his breath and yet he did not stop talking, as if her hips spurred on his words. The stilted, uneven manner of his breathing supported the senseless stream of consciousness that fell from his lips. "Oh, Michelle," he grated out. "You feel amazing. So beautiful. So tight." _So, so, so._

She cried in appreciation when she took him especially deep or when his words sent shivers down her spine, racing like a lightening bolt. Her face was twisted in concentrated pleasure, like she wanted to ring it out of him and take it herself. She blubbered her own failing sentences, "Harder. Oh, please, harder. Oh....oh, God, please. _Please_." 

Michelle tipped her head back and her hips quickened. He could not beat back the pleasure that was swirling in the bit of his stomach, mounting like some great militant attack. It crested and crashed into him as he bruised his hands on her hips and emptied himself into the cosmos. 

Into heaven. 

When his vision returned to him, she was still riding what she could from him and her dexterous, mischievous fingers were buried between her legs. He was exhausted and hazy from his pleasure. 

Still he found the strength to utter, "Call me Peter." 

She did not call it. She screamed it. 

She gasped out a cry and clenched like a viper around his softening dick, stealing her pleasure from the depths of his body. Drinking it from him. Falling apart. 

When she was done, when her body was through fluttering around him and making his head spin and weave, she collapsed heavily onto his sweaty chest and curled her ear above his uneven heartbeat. 

"Peter," she repeated, more quietly. 

He wound his fingers through her hair and for the first time found the strength to look up, where the cross was still looming above the altar. 

In another world, Michelle stirred contently in his arms. 

The cross had never left. 


	6. Chapter 6

She looked imperfect up close. After the all-consuming haze of passion extinguished and left him bereft of his vows and any common sense, he watched Michelle sleep in his narrow cot in the tiny vestry of the Church. The small, windowless room had been his home since arriving in Queensborough. It housed what little worldly possessions he owned. It housed all and everything was dear to him and, now, Michelle.

There was symbolism in that.

As a man of God, if he could still deem to call himself such a man, he knew a great deal about symbols. They were holy, divine and imperfect.

Just as the sleeping woman in his bed was turning out to be with each moment he knew her more.

She had a scar that ran like a silver line down her cheek. It was too delicate of an injury to see at a distance, but it was on marvelous display as she dreamed. Her fingers, too, were calloused and hardened by years of solitary living on the land and hard work. She had one tooth that, when she smiled, looked more crooked than the rest. He learned that last the night before as they tumbled backwards, joined at the mouth, into his room, after she had recovered from their initial coupling. Michelle Jones was wondrously human. It was her flaws, her quick wit, the fire that raged beneath her stern and willful eyes that he treasured above all.

Peter ran his soft thumb along the nearly invisible scar on her face and traced it. She stirred, looped her arm around his neck and said, “You have soft hands. Like one of them debutants back East.”

He dropped his head on the makeshift pillow of his arm and pressed their foreheads together. Peter whispered, “I was a man of God. I had no need to do hard labor.”

The goddess divine mumbled, the thick of sleep still weighed down her eyes, “I’m not soft. Never been my whole life.”

“You are as God intended,” he replied. “Wholly perfect.”

She fought to flutter her eyes open and he startled when he realized they were impossibly close. He could barely make out the flecks of green that speckled her dark irises. His vision of her was misty, nose-to-nose, as they were. Yet, he could still sense the fondness with which she gazed upon him. It made his chest expand in delight and seize in regret. Michelle cupped his cheek and her calloused fingers scratched his smooth-to-the-touch skin. “You, Peter Parker, are a confounding man.”

“Michelle Jones, I think I could love you.”

She smiled, but the shimmer of her smile did not quite reach her eyes, and said, “Yes, I think you think you could.”

* * *

When the sun arrived in full the next morning, she was gone. The only memory that she had been there at all—that she had kissed him and held him and he had been so, so weak to her charms—was the faint scent of the dusty desert she left behind. It was like a gust of wind had blown her away.

* * *

She did not come to his sermon that day and as he preached the words tasted false on his tongue, like a poison of his own spirit. He was a false man to preach of goodness when, only the night before, he had taken a woman on the steps of the altar. The wide eyes of his congregation blinked up at him with unfiltered trust. They knew him as he had been before the desert had swept though him like a sandstorm.

He knew, with complete certainty, the man who he had been. The man he was becoming was as mysterious as the woman that entangled him on the outskirts of town.

* * *

After service, Peter stood at the end of the Church wishing his friends and neighbors a healthy and happy week ahead. The people of Queensborough shook his hand and blessed him, as they left. He felt ill. He did not look back at the cross that mocked him, for it was the cross that hung overhead as Miss Jones sat astride him in sin. Oh, he was a lecherous man, indeed.

Ned Leeds shook the pastor’s hand with great gusto and, with a toothy smile, said, “Fine sermon today, pastor. Fine service.”

Peter swallowed the bile that rose in the back of his throat, “Why thank you, Mr. Leeds.”

His wife, the sweet and temperate Miss Betty, grabbed his hand with the ease and care of marriage. Peter stared at their entangled hands for a breath too long before he smiled at the lovely couple, “Your husband tells me you’re rather put out I’ve not had the time to join you for dinner, again.”

Miss Betty playfully swatted at Ned’s chest and he quietly chuckled at his wife’s antics, as she replied, “Never you mind that man, pastor. He says all kinds of things.”

He rested his hand over the concealed bible he had tucked back in his jacket pocket that morning. It did not quell his rising discomfort as it had once done. Peter briefly wondered if God had forsaken him. If he had, he reasoned, he deserved the spurning. The pastor plastered on a kindly grin, “I would be more than happy to join your family for dinner this week, Miss Leeds. Should you find it in your heart to host me.”

She readily agreed, and Ned tipped his hat in thanks. Ned suggested Peter was a goodly, Christian man for being so obliging. The townspeople that followed all seemed as equally pleased by their pastor’s attentive nature that morning, following his unpracticed sermon.

After they all departed, Peter decided he was the greatest pretender to ever live.

* * *

He did not see Michelle for nearly three days after they lay together.

In that time, he dreamed of her every night. She haunted his steps and everywhere he looked in his Church, he was reminded of her. The homesteader had painted his Church with her smiles and her wit and her sweet whimpers.

The last echoed with every clack of his boots up and down the aisle.

And so, when he finally saw her again, during a restless, late-night walk down the center of town, Peter imagined she might have been a mirage of his own mind. For he had seen her so often in his dreams, he did not falter when her dusty hat and sharp smile was sported on the Main Street in-true-person.

He only realized she was truly there, truly in town, when her voice was not the gentle, loving whispers from his bed. Unfairly to the real girl, his mind only imagined that version of Michelle.

The real Michelle was not even looking at him. She was scowling at the woman, Miss Tilly, who was shadowed in the door of her shop. Neither woman noticed his approach. Her voice snapped, unkindly, “Stop scouting my land, Tilly. I’ve warned you.”

Peter stepped closer to the scene drenched in moonlight. The two women were immovable forces. Neither seemed like to budge on whatever trouble was brewing betwixt them. “You think you can tell me off, girl? I should whip you for being so bold.”

“I’m not a girl, anymore, Tilly. I don’t bide you,” Michelle practically growled.

Miss Tilly coldly replied, “Everybody in this town bides me, Michelle. Even that pastor of yours. And nobody more than you.”

“Evening ladies,” Peter said before he could well stop himself from intervening. He did not miss the shocked and unwelcome look he received from Michelle. He bandaged up the wound that manifested on his heart for being so rebuked by her with his simple presence. He soldiered on speaking, “Everything alright?”

Miss Tilly had a sharp smile. It was the kind of smile that was more like a row of knives than teeth. He knew men in New York with such grins. He clutched at his concealed bible for strength that never came. “Never you mind, Pastor. We’re all done here.”

And she meant her words, too, for the door to the General Store shut promptly and Miss Tilly disappeared behind it.

Michelle loudly blasphemed and slammed her closed fist on the door. She whirled on him, looking half-mad. “Damn you, Peter,” she cursed again.

Peter dropped his eyes to the ground and tried not to relish the sound of his true name on her lips. “My apologies, miss. I wasn’t trying to make trouble,” he said, honestly.

Her eyes faltered and softened for only a flicker of a moment before she adopted steel, once more, and said, “I don’t need your help. I don’t need you to _save_ me.” Peter sputtered, but she continued, without pausing, possessed, “I minded these lands ages before you ever showed up on your fancy train, and I’ll mind them still when you decide to up and leave for another congregation.”  

“Michelle, I’m not leaving,” he interjected.

Her jaw clicked and, perhaps it was the moonlight, but her eyes looked misty with unshed tears, “Everybody leaves.” Without another word, she turned on her heel and stormed down the dusty road.

He did not pursue her, for he did not know what he would say, and when she was truly gone, Peter faced the eerie, locked door of the General Store.


	7. Chapter 7

Peter endured fitful dreaming for weeks after his fight with Miss Jones. As he climbed into his narrow cot in the even narrower vestry, he recounted every word hurled between them on that fateful night outside the General Store. After days, _no_ , **weeks** , he could still conjure a perfect image of the unshed tears that remained prisoners just behind her eyes and the dismissive, cold tone of her voice before she stalked down the dirt road and left him standing in her kicked-up dust.

The young pastor remained suspended in the memory of that night. She had climbed on the back of her horse and not returned. It had been seven long weeks without her in his Church, watching him cautiously from the creaky, wooden pews. With time, the smell of her on his pillow faded and the shirt she tore the night she stole his virtue like a bandit was eventually patched up by his unskilled stitches, like she had never touched him. In his most desperate moments of despair, he pondered if he had dreamed her up, and imagined the dusty brim of her hat and the glinting gun that swung from her hip.

Yet, when he passed the General Store, or caught sight of Miss Tilly on a midday stroll, Peter knew Michelle was real and he had lost her.

She had been so elusive, more secret than girl, when he had first stumbled into her on the dirt roads of Queensborough. His mentor had instructed him not to wander outside the safety of his post; and yet, had followed his traitorous heart to the outskirts of town and was nearly shot for his efforts by the gunslinger. In the end, she suffered sermons and the stuffy, judgmental looks of her neighbors. For him.

As he came to know her more, he understood her less.

When he was the most despondent Peter wished he had never met her, for his existence was tainted from the very memory of her. His bed was cursed by her sleepy, sweet eyes. His pulpit overlooked where he had worshiped at her altar.  The pews of his Church were haunted by the echoes of her once-attendance.

She burned her impression into everything about their little town, for Queensborough and Michelle were long-acquainted.

As he lay awake, daunted and dreamless, Peter went over their fight once more.

_“I minded these lands ages before you ever showed up on your fancy train,”_ she had said, _“and I’ll mind them still when you decide to up and leave for another congregation.”_ Michelle and Queensborough had history. He blinked at the mismatched slats of roofing above his head. Perhaps she had been right and he was just a stranger passing through.

* * *

Miss Tilly was a curious kind of woman. She did not go to Church. She kept her head covered at all times, with some hat or little parasol, and nobody in Queensborough was willing to talk to their pastor about the owner of the General Store. In the two months since he had last seen Michelle, Peter had brought up Miss Tilly in polite conversation half-a-dozen times with members of his congregation. He grew tired of how quickly they all pivoted conversation to something mundane, like the weather or his weekly sermon.

He did not care to have his own interpretation of Isaiah regurgitated to him. Peter wanted to know about Miss Tilly. He was no ordinary, unworldly youth from nowhere. Peter Parker was from Five Points. He had seen too many things to assume Miss Tilly was simply not a pious woman. He knew a sordid figure when he saw one and Miss Tilly was more than the average ne’er-do-well.

“That is quite enough,” Peter rested his head in his hands, quieting both the Leeds when Ned tried to shift the conversation away from Miss Tilly, once again, at their weekly dinner. Ned startled. Betty looked down in her lap. Peter found the strength to exhale, “I’m not trying to be short with you. God as my witness. But I can’t bear to be talked around like a child about Miss Tilly anymore.”

The Leeds shared a significant look. Peter felt his eyebrows crunch together in confusion, and half-in-hope, as the married couple silently considered a new path forward. He prayed they opted for the truth. He knew so little about so much of the town he had come to call his home in the last year. If Queensborough was to be _his_ , he needed answers.

Ned sighed, “What you need to understand, Peter—”

“What is vital you know,” Betty tagged-on, in her best efforts to support her husband.

He smiled gratefully and took his wife’s hand for support. Peter watched the couple’s fingers interlock with his own profound longing ringing in his ears. He missed Michelle. He yearned for days he had not lived, yet, and likely never would.  

Ned candidly said, “This is Miss Tilly’s town.”

Peter struggled, “I don’t understand.”

“The land, the stores, the Church even, it all belongs to Miss Tilly.”

He shook his head, “Surely that can’t be right.” Peter attempted to smile, but neither of the Leeds returned it. As the information seeped into his consciousness, still too sparse to fully comprehend, he touched his hand over his breast-pocket, where his copy of the scripture was tucked away, to give him strength in moments where he had none. “If that were the case,” he began to grasp, “that would mean…she…she is my benefactor.” It meant that Miss Tilly paid to upkeep the Church, and Miss Tilly paid his wages, and, when the old pulpiteer had passed away, Missy Tilly had sent to New York with a request for a new pastor. For him.

Ned cleared his throat, “Not many folk are willing to migrate West to land that ain’t built. Or towns that aren’t established. Miss Tilly had that kind of grit.” Ned looked at his wife. She glanced away, as a pretty blush stained her cheeks. Peter felt a heavy sense of foreboding. He knew, right, wrong or indifferent, whatever Ned was about to say, Peter could not unlearn. It would be the kind of information that leaked into his brain and soaked into his very soul. In a moment, he considered. He knew enough about the elusive figure with knives for a smile. He did not need to know more.

“She built a Dance Hall, Mista Parker.”

Peter felt his face grow flush. Betty quietly excused herself.

**The Dance Hall.** Miss Tilly was not Miss Tilly, after all. For if she built the Dance Hall, she was _Madam_ _Tilly_.

Peter felt faint. He practically reeled as Mrs. Leeds fled the room. And Ned, patient and kind as a man ever could be, waited until his wife was gone to continue speaking, “As money started to flow to these parts, she built a town around it. The General Store went up first. Then, the Church. The bank. And so-on it goes.”

“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

“Miss Tilly. She said she didn’t want you knowing.” Ned leaned back in his seat, “I think at first she was taking the measure of your character. But you’re the upstanding sort, Pastor. I don’t think she wanted you to know and think different of Queensborough.”

Queensborough. His God-loving town. Run by a Madam.

In the swirl of his confusion and shock, he remembered that Michelle and Miss Tilly’s conversation the night she had rode of out town and not returned. He had gone over that night in his head over and over and over again. He was not like to forget the exchanged words.

_“Stop scouting my land, Tilly. I’ve warned you,”_ Michelle had snapped.

Peter lifted his weary eyes to Ned, as he realized something profound. “Ned, is Miss Tilly trying to expand Queensborough?”

* * *

He rode his horse the two hours it took to traverse the dangerous route to Michelle’s homestead. He left from the Leeds’ home, as soon as he was able to stand, and did not stop for water or rest the entire journey. The moon was high in the sky and Michelle was as likely to shoot him as a trespasser as embrace him as a lover upon his arrival, but he could not wait until morning. Now that he knew the truth, he had to see her.

Peter was not going to let Miss Tilly take her land. He was not going to leave her, now or ever. Queensborough was not the idyllic town he had orchestrated in his mind, but Michelle was not a fantasy. At last, he knew her. All of her.

She was desert and sky and as real as the earth that pounded beneath his horse’s feet as he galloped toward her.

For everything that no longer made sense, she remained a constant. She was real. He had faith in her, still, after all these weeks alone.

When he arrived at her homestead, he flung himself from his horse and landed unprettily on the ground. He was too eager to dismount with any real skill. “Michelle!” he shouted. “MICHELLE!” He yelled, again. There was the boom of a gun that spooked his horse, and he froze. He slowly and cautiously lifted both of his hands. “Michelle,” he whispered.

He heard her cock her rifle, as she prepared to fire off another warning shot or shoot him where he stood. He did not care. He was looking at her and she was beautiful. “You’ve got ten seconds to tell me why you’re trespassing, Mr. Parker, or else my next shot won’t miss.”

He did not have time to hesitate. The great orator opted to speak plainly, “I know Miss Tilly is a Madam. I know she is trying to steal your land. And I won’t let her. I’ll protect you.”

Michelle narrowed her eyes, “Protect me?”

Peter nodded.

Her steely eyes softened in pity. “You poor, sweet fool. You can’t protect me. She’s my mother.”


	8. Chapter 8

Ned looked despondent. “You’re going back to New York.”

The young pastor nodded, as he packed what-little-items he owned in the same suitcase he had arrived in Queensborough with all those long months ago. The narrow vestry that had been his home since his arrival was still haunted by the memory of Michelle, but the memory no longer retained the shiny quality it once did. Now that he knew the truth of her, he could not stay in the West. The town was polluted, ridden with sin and lies.

His mentor Tony had given him a letter with rules to bide during his time in Queensborough and he had ignored them. He had not been vigilant. He had assumed his role in the dusty, Western town with open arms and believed he was making real change. The people of Queensborough needed guidance, he had thought, when he arrived, and he was a Godly man that would serve his divine purpose and help them see the good, righteous path. All had lied to him.

He could not offer salvation to those that would conceal the truth from him. He felt betrayed. He felt hurt. He felt the fool.

Peter wearily sat on the edge of his cot. Ned waited, while he scrambled for the right words to say. “I can’t stay here.” It was not an explanation, but Peter found it was all he could really say about the state of things. He needed to close this brief chapter of his life and move forward.

“I’ll be mighty sad to see you go,” Ned said, softly.

The young pastor looked up at his friend and tried to smile, for his sake, “If you and Betty are ever in New York, please look me up. I would be happy to see friends.”

Ned lightened, considerably. “Yes,” he agreed. “Friends.”

* * *

He had a train to catch. The trains that traveled through these parts were inconsistent and sporadic, and Peter was not keen on being late. He wanted to climb aboard the steam engine and swing back to New York, to his Aunt and Mentor, with no further thoughts of what he was leaving behind.

Late last-night, as he finished his packing, Peter stood like a statue at the door of the Church. He nearly wretched the door open and road like a madman to Michelle half-a-dozen times. His common sense prevented it. Now, the morning after his near miss at destruction, he was weary from what-ifs and perhaps. After all, he had a train to catch.

He rested his bag on the altar table and looked out across his Church. It had been a fine place of worship. He suddenly wished he had done more, given more to the people of this town. Peter sighed and buried his face in his hands, willing himself to breathe deeply.

The door to the Church swung open and Peter mumbled into his palms, “I am sorry, but no confession today. I have a train to catch.”

“I won’t be but a minute.”

Peter felt his entire body erupt in goosebumps. He pulled his sapped eyes from his hands and took in the irreverent figure of Miss Tilly. _No, Madame Tilly._

He watched on, in barely concealed horror, as she waltzed down the aisle of his Church, or he supposed it had really been her Church all along. She strutted with the full knowledge that she owned the four walls surrounding them. Peter did not know what to say, or what to think.

The woman did not seem bothered by his suddenly poor grasp of the English language. There was a seat beside the altar table that, without being asked or given leave, Madame Tilly lowered herself onto and folded her hands into her lap. He noticed, she possessed the mannerly graces of a woman three times her station. 

“You came into my town determined to save it, Mr. Parker.”

He held his breath.

“But you never once considered that perhaps it didn’t needed your saving in the first place.”

She lifted the burly copy of the bible that laid undisturbed beside the chair she had stolen. It had been the old Pastor’s copy of the scripture. Peter had never had the courage to read another man’s bible. It felt like a deeply personal item, the Good Lord’s word. He kept his own in his breast pocket, above his heart. And left the memory of the man in peace beside the chair.

Madame Tilly flipped open the book with far less reverence than Peter. “These people, _my people_ , are a good people.” She smirked, as if her words amused her, and said, “Now, I didn’t say perfect people. People ain’t perfect and when you get to be my age you’ll stop minding their failings so much and learn to appreciate the way things are instead of the way you would force them to be.” She rested her flat palm on some unknown page of the bible and finally looked up at Peter. He felt exposed and appraised.

And ashamed.

The truth of Michelle’s parentage was glaringly apparent to him now. The two women shared the same fierce nature, like the dusty wind of the Wild West. “These people needed someone up in this building to steward their faith, not save them from their circumstances. You are not God, Mr. Parker. You are his child and servant, same as me and same as every single soul in this town. And my God does not judge others for what life has often made of people.”

She snapped the bible shut. It echoed in the boom of the wooden Church. Peter quaked, gripping the edge of the altar table so hard that his knuckles turned white. Madame Tilly stood from her chair and dropped the bible on her forgotten seat. “Jesus Christ did not judge Mary Magdalene. He embraced her and loved her the same way he loved all his neighbors.” Peter flushed at the mention of such deeds. Madame Tilly clicked her tongue, each faint tsk shattered like a bullet to his chest, “You haven’t shown an ounce of neighborly affection to the girls that work at The Dance Hall since you came into this town. You have turned your nose up at the parts of the Queensborough you have found unseemly and you have been a good Pastor to the parties that don’t ruffle your feathers. And now, now that you know the truth about this town, you are going to turn tail and run back to New York.”

Her heels clacked as she drew closer to him and she sneered openly, “You don’t know me, Mr. Parker. I love this town. I toiled for this town. These people are my people and I would no sooner judge a farmer than I would, say, a girl on the outskirts of the town proper.”

Peter blanched. Madame Tilly nodded, patiently, “Oh yes, Mr. Parker. There isn’t anything that goes on ‘round here that I ain’t informed about.” Her eyes narrowed, imperceptivity, “Especially when such goings-on are about _my daughter_.” He grabbed for the scripture hidden beneath the wooly curtain of his jacket. Madame Tilly looked upon him with pity. He was unmanned by such a look.

“I have been trying longer than you to get my daughter back into the fold of the town. Her self-imposed exile is exactly that, self-imposed. No matter what you think, pastor, I want my daughter home.  Homsteading ain’t safe for a woman, no matter how good of a shot she might be.”

Madame Tilly gave Peter one final look that was so cold, so disgusted that he truly wondered if perhaps her estimate of his character was true. He had been a deplorable neighbor. He had tried to bend the goodly nature of Queensborough to his esteem of Christ. And he had carried-on with a woman on the very altar he damned sin.

He and hypocrisy were bedfellows.

As the Madame glided out of the Church, walking much the same as her daughter often did, Peter ripped his bible free from his jacket. The familiar cover in his grip did not temper all of his warring feelings. It only filled him with shame. He called after her, with his head bowed low, “Madame Tilly?” She turned around on her heel slowly and cocked an eyebrow, as if to give him permission to keep speaking. “You said Miss Jones’ exile from town is self-imposed. Why?”

“She caught the sweating sickness last April. Her father got himself ill trying to nurse her back to health. He died in June.”

“Died—” Peter mouthed, trying to work out one final puzzle. Madame Tilly patiently waited for him to solve it. When it became apparent he was not one for riddles, her eyes shifted to the chair she occupied earlier. On the seat, the lone bible of Pastor Watson sat like a monument.

The truth came together like a lightening bolt and all of Miss Jones' enigmas were _finally_ laid bare.

Madame Tilly nodded her head, in a pantomime of a curtsey, and remarked coolly, “Good day, Mr. Parker.” She pushed the heavy Church doors open. “As you said, you got a train to catch.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one more chapter. ONE MORE CHAPTER.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well, this is the end. it was a long, hard path to get here. but its finally done. thank you all for reading it and becoming invested in this ABSOLUTELY BONKERS wild west world. it was a blast.

He rode a backbreaking pace out past the town lines. The horse beneath him huffed with effort as Peter pushed and pushed and pushed. He might have imagined it, but Peter heard the whistle of his departing train in the wisps of the western landscape. It was leaving for New York. 

And he was not on it.

He rode harder.

The last time he had taken this journey, he had been filled with a misguided optimism. He had thought he was coming to save Michelle, like one of those knights in the stories his Aunt spun him as a boy. He had not saved Gwen, but, in the imaginary tapestry of his mind, he could save the girl with guns hanging from her hips. When he had arrived, his mind heartened by his own good deeds, she had run him through with the truth. 

The world shattered about him, and he, so certain of his own goodness, was left without the tools to build himself back up. Delicate, city boys never did know how to fix their house. It crumbled around them at the first sign of hardship.

Peter scowled at the memory of that boy. As of that morning, he had still inhabited his body, until Madame Tilly brought the Almighty Pastor Peter Parker down to the ground. Humans were not designed to float above the clouds. The dirt, the ground, the earth was where people dwelled. They were better for their imperfections. 

He tightened his fists in the leather reins. "Come on, boy." 

* * *

The horse only slowed when they galloped on the homestead. Peter smoothed his hand over his mane and whispered, "Good boy." The horse whinnied in appreciation. He repeated, "Good boy." He slid off the horse and guided him near a metal tub of water. As he ducked his head to drink, Peter tied him up on the wooden post. 

He looked around the property and paused. His felt his stomach lurch in his throat. 

And like history was want to do, it repeated itself. 

He called out. “Miss Jones? Michelle? I--Michelle, its Peter. Pastor Peter Parker. Please." 

He heard the stomach quenching cock of a rifle. “Turn ‘round real slow.” The voice of his would-be attacker was fierce and eerily calm and unmistakably _Michelle_. 

“Michelle," he whispered, and relished in her voice.

“That'll be Miss Jones to you, Pastor Parker,” she said, and much to his dismay, her gun was still aimed in his direction. He turned around slowly, raising his hands weakly, as a plea for her restraint. He understood how they had come back here, to the beginning of what was the start of their story, and he was the grand architect of all of their loss. 

“Forgive me, Miss Jones,” he corrected. “I've come to talk.” Miss Jones took the safety off of her Winchester. The rifle creaked an unsettling click, as it had done that first meeting. He softly entreated, “ _Michelle_ , please.”

She did not lower her gun, “I have nothing to say to you, Pastor. Save this. Get off my land.”

She nudged the barrel of her gun against his chest. It was as cold as he remembered. Only this time, he was not afraid of the shot. He had made his peace with all things save losing her. He gave her leave to do what she deemed appropriate to him, so long as he went into the next life looking into her eyes. 

"I seem to remember you don't like guns," she said, dryly. 

"There are worse things." 

Finally, miraculously, she lowered her gun and with it, all of her armor went, too. She glistened of a sadness that was deeper than sorrow. Peter flinched. He had done that to her. In his misguided view of his own self-importance, he had failed to see all of the pieces of her heart that she had offered to him over the course of their distorted courtship. 

He had luxuriated in his faith and constructed it as a wall between them. She was a child of the earth and sky. She had no need for such boundaries. 

"I didn't get on my train," he said.

She turned her back to him and leaned her rifle against the wooden post. He stepped around her, cutting off her path and longed for her eyes. _Look at me_ , he wanted to beg. _Please, look at me_. 

Michelle turned her cheek, looking everywhere but him. "Is that all?" 

He flared with something twisted and vie and human. It was anger. "Is that all?" he repeated, flatly. "Michelle, I missed my train. I came here. For you. And you can't even look at me." 

She, too, was filled with that vile stuff. Anger. She carried it better than he did. It was a weapon on his senses as her eyes finally snapped to him. She practically growled, "Why should I care that you've taken the pains to come here? You ought to have boarded your silly train, Pastor." 

"You don't mean that." 

"Yes, I do." 

"Am I to believe my services meant nothing to you?" 

"I wasn't just coming to services because my Pastor asked me to, Peter. I rode my way four hours to and from that God-forsaken town each and e'ry Sunday because I wanted to see _you_." His mind grinded to a halt, like the wheels of some rusted train. She tucked her wind-blown curls behind her ear. It was a nervous gesture that made his heart thud in an uneven, frantic manner. It was the same rhythm his heart chimed as the night she pulled him into her arms under all the holy relics of his Church and kissed him. The sound was not a profound statement, like the toll of Church bells, but something softer and more intimate, like the chimes that hung off a porch in the desert and only rang when the wind passed through them.

Moved, he took a step toward her and she countered a step back. Her eyes were blown wide with fear, not of him but of something deeper, a fear of the spirit, if he had to guess. He knew a thing or two about grappling with his demons. Peter stalled his feet and endured the unwelcome space between them. He gave her the room to shakily breathe and speak some more. "I have a hard time getting close to people. Easier to just mind myself and stay out here, on my lonesome."

"Michelle--" Peter croaked.

She hastily brushed at her face with the rough, calloused pad of her palm. "And then you came 'long. All sweet-faced and silly, walking on a homesteader's property like you weren't the least bit afraid of what happens to smartly dressed men alone in the desert."

"I was terrified," he whispered. 

"You came out onto my property and you said some pretty things about not carrying notions on my person." Her lip quirked upwards in the echo of a teasing smile. "That was a lie. You carried all kinds of notions about me. And I carried them about you, too." She shook her head, as if to banish the well of emotions that were visibly shaking her foundations. Michelle Jones was a rickety girl, the kind that could endure all manner of hardship but the cracks showed. She gnawed on her lip and said, "From the very beginning, Peter. From that first moment. I knew you were gonna break my heart." 

In that moment, Peter recognized that it was enough. 

He had been looking at their story all wrong. This was not the end. The was the beginning made new. It was a second chance. 

And Peter refused to waste it. 

He closed the short distance between them and their mouths met in an imperfect embrace. Peter felt her hand skirt the fabric of his vest, uncertain of what to do, until it closed around the brown panel at his shoulder. She hauled him closer and he could almost taste the salt of her tears as they streamed between them.

He had done so much wrong in trying to do right. He had hurt people, countless people, as he endeavored to save them. He had misunderstood the power of his station, the responsibility of his post. Peter Parker was not a God. He was a young man who had been freely gifted the respect and admiration of a town out West. 

Quietly, Peter vowed to never abuse that trust, again. 

" _You just left_ ," she cried in the seams of their kisses. Her words rippled through him like she had shot him, and Michelle was an ace shot. He pillowed their foreheads together. She clutched at his shoulder and he prayed she did not push him away. "The moment you knew the truth, you ran as fast as you could and bought the first ticket outta here." 

He knew it was not enough to heal what had been broken between them, his beautiful, western wind girl, but Peter brushed her cheek with his thumb, attempting to quell her distress. He was not a calloused thing. For all his personal hardships, he had not been forged by the wild natures of the world. She had. "I'm sorry." She shook her head, so he insisted, "I'm so, so sorry. I know, _I know_ , I don't deserve it, but if you could find it in your heart to give me one more chance, I will not falter. I will not stop. I will love you until the sky has burned up and the world returns to whence it came."

"Peter..."

He hushed her with another, brief kiss. "I will love you for all you are and for all you are not. I will love you on the days you cannot face the town and on the days you endure it with a sharp grin. I will love your hands that have known more honest work than most men. I will love your grit and your courage, and I will never try and make you less than that which you are. Wholly imperfect and yet absolutely perfect." Peter lifted her closed fist to his lips and brushed his mouth across her bruised knuckles. Her eyes fluttered shut. "Michelle, I am but a man and have been fashioned of inferior stuff. But I will love you with all that I have and all that I am from this day until the end of my days." 

Her eyes opened. 

He waited for her to dash his hopes. 

She raised her unsteady hands and cupped his bristled cheeks. "Please don't break my heart, again." 

"You can break mine. A hundred times over. Just so long as you keep it." 

Michelle nodded, eyes filled with tears, and swept him away in the sandstorm of her kisses. 

* * *

_Dear Anthony,_

_Where I have landed, God himself lives. It is true what you said, that no man owns the land. However, I am pleased to say, the world **is** a kind place. _

_It is filled with generosity and laughter. It is not always perfect, but I am coming to learn that the Lord our God has made us imperfect. It is His will that all people are perfect in their imperfections._

_If you would not mind, I would offer you these five amended rules, a code of the West:_

  1. _Do not inquire into a person’s past. Take the measure of a man for what he is today._
  2. _Do not practice ingratitude._
  3. _Friendship is not always a lasting thing. Hearts change like the seasons, but some are steadfast and true. Such friends are worth their weight in gold._
  4. _Do not look too kindly on another man’s woman. It is grounds to be shot._
  5. _And, finally; the folks that live outside town are indeed made of wild, beautiful stuff._



_I have enclosed a picture of my wife, Michelle. By the time this letter reaches you, our child will be born. I have not known such blissful freedom in all my life._

_Yours, affectionately,_

_Peter_


End file.
